


The Head and the Heart

by moonygirl76



Series: The Head and the Heart Series [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Amnesia, BAMF Stiles, But also, Established Relationship, Happy Ending, Hurt Stiles Stilinski, M/M, Minor Violence, Or Is It?, Scenting, Temporary Amnesia, just a little thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-26 12:34:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20930306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonygirl76/pseuds/moonygirl76
Summary: Stiles awakens with a head injury. Derek is noticeably absent. Stiles questions everything.





	The Head and the Heart

**Author's Note:**

> My first in this fandom! Thanks for reading.

Head and the Heart

Awareness doesn’t come all at once. First to come is the pain. Dull at first, behind his right ear, invading his dream and keeping him from holding on to the warm blanket of sleep. Stiles can hear his dad next to him, recognizing him before he is all the way to the surface. His dad’s aftershave strong in his nose. The creak of his holster, as he shifts, is familiar in his ears. A noise he’s associated with his dad since, well, always. 

His dad being next to Stiles while he’s sleeping is altogether strange and comfortable simultaneously. Stiles tries to remember, even before opening his eyes, where he is. What day is it? Do I have school? Where’s Derek?

Then he hears the familiar beeping of a heart monitor and well, shit. In the hospital again. This shouldn’t be such a familiar noise, but he’s been in this situation all too many times to count in his eighteen young years. Running with the supernatural has that occupational hazard. 

The pain is sharper now and he can’t help but groan. He waits for the familiar warm hand that should be sliding up his arm, or maybe carding through his hair to start the Alpha pain drain. He can almost see Derek, where he must be sitting, in his usual chair on his left side. A sight he’s woken up to enough in these circumstances to know by heart. The furrowed brow, the specific furrowed brow that tells him that Derek is altogether angry and relieved all at the same time. 

His dark hair will be handsomely mussed from, perhaps, long hours of fisting his hands through it. Waiting. Anxious. 

Stiles doesn’t mean to cause him anxiety. But despite being the resident squishy human, he continues, and will continue, to do what’s necessary to keep his pack safe. Even if that means waking up once again in the hospital making Derek anxious and adding worry lines to his father’s face. 

With his eyes open now, or one of them, the right one doesn’t seem to want to open, maybe from swelling, he can see those worry lines. His dad, in uniform, Sheriff’s badge as familiar as his face, is on the phone. He hits a button to end the call when he sees Stiles looking at him. 

“Welcome back. You had some swelling in your brain, but it seems to be coming down now. Do you know where you are?” his dad asks.

“My second home? Beacon Hills General Hospital?”

“Got it in one, son. I’m going to ring the nurse to let the doctors know you’re back with us.” He squeezes Stiles arm, just above where Stiles can see there is an IV line taped to his skin. He looks past this discovery to the vacant chair on his left side. 

“Where’s Derek?” he asks.

His dad pauses without answering and when Stiles turns back, he sees a cautious look of confusion. Which, in turn, confuses Stiles. The presence of Derek, his enemy turned cautious ally turned mutual life-saver turned boyfriend is a common one. He can see him in his mind’s eye. Different occasions, looking over to see him sitting there. Sometimes with a coffee, sometimes on the phone, sometimes just staring at Stiles so intently it makes his heart flutter with it. So, he’s not sure why the question should cause the look of confusion. 

“Don’t you remember?” his dad asks. 

“Oh,” Stiles says. That’s why. He should have probably remembered. He shrugs, because head injury. “Noooooo?” 

He remembers Derek’s warm hands, warm arms, warm everything. Derek whispering in his ear. Derek smiling. It happens. He’s seen it. But, Where is Derek? He does not remember that. 

“Do you remember what happened?” his dad asks. 

Happened?

Stiles closes his eyes and tries to produce a memory. Must have been an Omega. A stray, wild werewolf in the preserve. They get those sometimes. Or a hunter. Or a group of hunters looking for information on Derek and the pack. Because that has happened. Is a thing that happens. But nothing recent comes. 

He tries. “I saw Derek Sunday. Pack night. Isaac had a cold. I remember school yesterday. I got an ‘A’ on my essay on Homosexuality in North American Mammals, but I failed my gym test.”

“How do you fail a gym test?” his dad asks.

“I had a cramp?”

His dad’s face does a thing. A familiar thing. A mixture of awe and bafflement. Leaning just this side of bafflement. 

“Things range from a bit fuzzy to complete nothing after that. I think I ate a Hot Pocket at some point?” 

“You were at the library in town. Apparently with a study group. Got jumped heading back to your car. Mugged.”

“Mugged? Randomly? Randomly mugged?”

“Seems to be.”

“That’s sounds decidedly pedestrian for Beacon Hills,” Stiles says.

His dad smiles. “Does, doesn’t it. I’ll keep you appraised if we encounter evidence of witches or pixies or flying monkeys.”

“You do that, Dad.” He thinks to ask more questions. His need for information, ever present, even through the burn on the right side of his head. But the doctors are bustling in now. Shining lights in his eyes. Asking him questions, not all of which he can answer, and out of now where he is sitting straight up and retching. The nausea pouring over him like a pail of cold water. Someone gets a pink bucket in front of him just in time. The force of it, increasing the pain in his head times ten. 

Then everything gets a bit muzzy around the edges and he suspects that something has been slipped into his IV line. It’s uncomfortably involuntary. But comfortably . . . comfortable. As the pain and the nausea ebbs away and he’s back resting on clouds of pillows. Or pillows of clouds. He looks to his left one more time, before blankness takes him, and thinks. Where’s Derek?

He wakes this time all at once, with a start. Something has fallen on the floor.  
“Sorry, bro!” he hears in the dark. Scotty, then. All werewolf agility and, yet, human teen-boy clumsiness. The shades are drawn and the lights dim, the only source of light coming from the cracked door allowing in a stream of pale fluorescents. “You okay?” Scotty asks.

Stiles tries to answer, but his mouth is dry and gummy. “Water?” he croaks out.

Scotty shuffles around some more and the locates a table at the end of the bed. “Looks like ice is on the menu.” He spoons some chunks and brings them to Stiles’s open mouth. Stiles chews thoughtfully and lets the cool wetness ease his parched tongue. His head feels sleep-heavy, like he’s been sleeping for days. 

A nurse comes through in the doorway, with a quick knock, to do all her checks. When she tosses her long braid aside and leans, in she smells sweet, in a gentle sort of way. Like coconut. Light in the eye, hand grasps, pulses on his feet, silly questions—most of which he still can’t answer—and then after offering him more meds nooooo leaves to find him more ice chips. 

Scotty starts to ramble on about the wolves freaking out over him missing, and then finding him injured. Goes on about school and rumors. Just seems to go on. 

“Where’s Derek?” Stiles asks, possibly interrupting. Scotty, like his dad, doesn’t answer at first. Looks away. Drums his fingers on the bed sheet. Which. Stiles has known Scotty a long time. And while they may not be the attached-with-Velcro brothers that they used to be, Stiles knows what this means. 

Something is wrong. Something is wrong with Derek? Something is obviously wrong with Stiles. Maybe something is wrong with Stiles asking about Derek. Is it weird?

“Why do you keep asking about Derek?” Scotty asks, his eyes narrowed. Does he?

As far as he is aware, he’s only asked about Derek twice. Only once to Scott. Is asking at all what seems strange to them?

Stiles, again, can see in his mind’s eye cuddled up in bed with Derek, cooking his dad dinner with Derek, taking bits of broken glass out of Derek’s bloody back—ok, well. That last one isn’t really evidence of a romantic or domestic relationship but, it does show the presence of intimate trust. He also has memories of a much more intimate, sexual nature but those aren’t as clear. Like maybe they could be dreams, or fantasies played over and over in his head. 

Stile’s breath caught in his throat. What if Derek isn’t his boyfriend? What if in his head-injury fog, he awoke from a dream to believe Derek was his boyfriend. Because if Derek was his boyfriend, wouldn’t he be here? It’s been hours, maybe days. 

“Derek left,” Scotty says. Abrupt and thrown out like a used tissue. “Mexico, again, probably.”

There’s an ache in his chest now. Because certainly that would be something that he’d remember. Something that would affect his mood. Derek leaving would in theory affect his ability to finish his (very gay) essay, eat a Hot Pocket and go to study groups if, in fact, they were actual boyfriends. 

If.

“I’m having pain,” Stiles tells Scott. Not feeling very much guilt—only a bit—when Scotty leaps from his chair, eyes wide, to find the nurse. 

Scotty stays through dinner. He doesn’t say much, just sort of watches Stiles. And Stiles just sort of watches Scotty watch him. Though in a much more subtle way.

After a dinner, that he pokes at more than eats, the coconut-smelling nurse comes in again. Scotty politely steps into the hall.

The nurse is asking him questions again. How on earth is he to know that date if he doesn’t have his phone? 

“Are you still feeling anxious?” she asks.

“No,” he lies. And he can, because he’s no longer hooked up to the heart monitor. 

“I couldn’t help overhear—” she starts, but is interrupted when a uniformed deputy knocks at the door. He doesn’t recognize him. Tall, with a blond beard. One of the new ones he guesses. There’s several of those this year. He introduces himself, and Stiles nods, already losing the name, as he leans back into his pillows. The nurse exits quietly.

He asks him questions about what he can remember. Which is still nothing. 

Then, after a nod, the deputy empties out a yellow evidence envelope onto Stiles’s tray table. His wallet. His phone. He checks. It’s dead. Or broken, the screen is cracked in a way he doesn’t remember it being. 

“Is this your wallet?” the deputy asks. 

“Yes,” Stiles answers with a nod. 

“Could you tell me what’s missing?” he asks. 

Stiles dutifully opens his wallet, warm with time and use. His Beacon Hills student ID is front and center. Stiles still hates that he’s blinking in the picture. And why did he choose to wear that shirt? Orange has never been his color. 

His library card is there, gas station points card, and his hole-punch card for a free smoothie after ten purchased! 

The large compartment in the back is empty. Usually there is his “just-in-case twenty” and maybe a couple of singles? He tells the deputy. He’s not much for carrying a ton of cash. He always has his—oh. “My cash card is missing,” he says. He should cancel that. Or maybe his dad already did. 

Deputy nods and makes a note. Stiles opens the last inside flaps and finds a coin—no. Not a coin. It’s a metal symbol. A triskele. The same symbol that’s tattooed on Derek’s back. He has a memory then, so clear, so vivid of being in bed with Derek. Naked. Warm. Sex-warm. Derek dozing on his stomach and Stiles tracing that symbol over and over with the tips of his fingers. Then with the warm weight of his lips. 

The deputy clears his throat. “Anything else missing?” Just Derek, he thinks. But he shakes his head. 

The deputy asks a few more questions about if he remembers what happened. Any flashes of faces or voices?

“Where’s Derek?”

The voice in his head startles him, because it’s not his own. Why would someone be asking him where Derek was? 

“Stiles?” the deputy asks, maybe sensing that Stiles remembered something. There’s a flash of uncertainty. The voice. Not attached to a time, or person or place. But beyond that. The knowledge of Derek suddenly feels private, precious, and, more so, tenuous. Like he’s losing grasp of it. Of Derek.

He squeezes the triskele in his palm. “I don’t remember anything.”

They bring him home on a grey morning. Is it morning? What is time in the hospital? His dad helps him upstairs and settles him into his bed. His vision is no longer blurry, but he’s dizzy and it makes his gait wonky and precarious. He feels tired and listless, even though all he seems to be doing is sleeping. His dad tries to get him to order something for lunch, and he finally settles on soup, just to appease him. 

As soon as his dad’s footfalls can be heard on the stairs, he turns his face in to his pillow and breathes in the scent of Derek. Or imagines he can. 

His dad has to go back to work tonight. Apologizes profusely, then lingers in Stiles’s room for another ten minutes, asking if he can bring Stiles any more water, books, food? Reminding Styles to call him or Scott if he needs anything. 

He hears dad’s heavy footfalls again on the stairs, then his dad’s car starting and pulling out of the driveway, the belt squealing. 

Stiles rolls over on his side and sees, on the floor next to his bed, the clear take home bag from the hospital, stamped with BEACON HILLS GENERAL in blue letters. His wallet is in there, smashed against the side of the bag. His ruined clothes. Cut off, no doubt, when he came in as a trauma. Unconscious. Both the shirt and the pants have blood on them. Head wounds tend to bleed, he thinks. His car keys are in there too and, as he pulls out his clothes to throw them away, they jangle as they hit the floor.

And he’s gone. 

He’s walking out of the library. Heather waves as she jogs toward her mom’s minivan. Lydia has already driven away. He drops his keys on to the concrete just outside his Jeep. They jangle just as he hears the voice. “Where’s Derek?”

“Derek? Half-way to Mexico by now, I’d guess,” he answers, as two strangers, a man and a woman, approach him. Stiles adds a casual shrug. As if the information means nothing. But it’s a lie. And he hopes these are curious hunters, that venture in to town with questions about their pack, and not some rival pack looking to start something with Derek’s mate. They would be able to hear the rabbit-fast beat of his heart. They would be able to hear the lie. 

The guy is shorter than Stiles, by a few inches, but stockier in build by a lot. The female is willowy, with a long braid. She smells sweet when she steps close. Like coconut. 

“We’ve some unsorted business with him, Stiles. We just want to talk.” She runs a knuckle along his jaw, either to threaten or coax him, either way causing him to flinch back. 

“Talk all you want, but it’ll be long-distance.”

The left hook is unexpected. As is the strength of it. She must lift. That’s on him for underestimating her. 

Stiles is keeping watch the guy, hanging back and playing look-out, but also keeping his attention on the woman, and her left hook, so it doesn’t surprise him again. That’s how he misses the third person, bigger than both of them come up from around the back of the Jeep until he is on him. 

His phone is out of his pocket and he hears the smash as it hits the concrete. He wrangles him into some kind of a half Nelson? Full Nelson? Well, he has his arms immobile and his body pinned up against the Jeep from behind. 

“We had a run in with Derek recently,” the woman goes on, her voice casual, like the situation hasn’t escalated already to them causing him bodily harm and them physically restraining him.  
“He was causing some trouble up our way, and we need to do a little follow-up. Make sure he understands . . . what he needs to understand about our rules. We also want to find out what he knows about Bucky Hamilton coming up dead.”

“Derek hasn’t been ‘up’ anywhere as of late. And you all see a bit psycho-pants for his taste in company. Also, I don’t really give two shits what happened to ol’ Bucky.” Stiles says. Because that’s how lack of brain-mouth filter works with ADHD. Had he taken his pill this morning? Did he have breakfast?

He’s snapped back with the sound of a gun cocking. Uh-oh.

“Bucky was my brother,” the guy not smashing Stiles chest-first into his Jeep says. 

“Well, I certainly hope you are the more level-headed of the brothers.”

“We are going to ask you one more time. Because if anyone in this town knows where Derek is, we’re told it would be you.”

“Where did you hear that? Not from Bucky? Because I think he wouldn’t be able to tell you that, what with the whole being-dead thing?”

He doesn’t see it coming. The pain behind his ear is sudden and jarring and, thankfully, leads to black. 

Back in his room Stiles is on his feet. He is shaky and wobbly, but he is on his feet. Two things have alighted in his poor and damaged brain. Derek is not in Mexico. But that isn’t what’s important. 

What is important, and, causing Stiles to make a valiant attempt toward pants, is the fact that his Driver’s License, with his home address, is missing. And that the nurse at the hospital is a hunter and knows that he has gone home to said address.

If Stiles is going to get attacked in his own home. He, at the very least, would like to be wearing pants. 

Stiles reaches his dresser without incident, but if he needs to sit to put on his pants no one needs to know. From his perch on his desk chair he reaches along the side of his desk on the window side to find his baseball bat. 

A wave of nausea hits then like a tsunami. Stiles breathes through it like a champ. Nice and easy. He ignores the sweat building along his hairline. He ignores the pulsating pain that’s beginning behind his ear again. This is something he has to do. Keeping hunters at bay, fighting a variety of supernatural threats, this is all in a day’s work. 

Stiles gets to his feet. And if he has to do that work with a head injury—oh damn, here comes the dizziness. He sits back down. Glancing out the window he can see long shadows cast by all the trees in his yard but, luckily, no hunters. But hunters are used to not being seen. 

He gets to his feet again. Breathing. Still breathing. He swallows with difficulty. Using the bat like a cane he makes his way out of his room and into the hallway. He might need the wall for support, but that’s not anyone’s business but his own. 

Stiles considers sliding down the stairs, but he is a man. A man-boy and he will walk. Slowly, leaning heavily on the railing but, still. 

In the kitchen he pulls a glass down from the cupboard and fills it with water from the tap. He drinks it down fully. 

Reaching for the landline he dials the one number he knows by heart. 

The night air is cool on Stile’s face. He stands strong, both shoes on, in his back yard waiting. He could wait in the front, but Mrs. Henderson doesn’t need to see whatever is about to go down. It doesn’t take long. The three hunters come around the side of the house, the gun-smash-happy guy already has his pistol out, though it hangs limply by his side. 

Coconut-braid smiles, like she’s happy to see Stiles, and the third? Well the third just generally looks grumpy and unhappy to be alive. Or that Stiles is still alive. 

Coconut braid speaks first. “Here we are, Stiles. So good to see you back on your feet.”

“I always land on my feet. I’m like a cat. Nine lives, too, and all that.”

“Indeed. I hope so. Because you know how this goes now, right? Last round was a warning and Derek didn’t show or make contact. This round is us using you for bait. Third round will be punishment.”

“Yeah, yeah. This isn’t my first rodeo.”

All three take a step towards him. “But first—I have to tell you something,” Stiles says.

They pause, two looking amused, the third—that jackass with the gun—looks impatient. 

“Actually first-first, I have to ask your name,” Stiles points at the woman with the braid. “I can’t just keep characterizing you as the coconut-smelling woman.”

She smiles. Or, at least, half of her mouth rises and shows some teeth. “Natasha.”

“Great villain name. And the brand of shampoo? Because if I live, I’m gonna get me some of that.”

Her smile drops. She’s grown tired of his shenanigans. Most do. 

“No? Okay. Well, the other thing I want to tell you is that I’m going to fight. It’s not in me not to fight. So, this is going to get messy, I’m not going easy, and I might not be the live and cooperative hostage you were looking for. Maybe not alive, definitely not cooperative is what I mean to say.”

“We will just have to subdue you quickly. It wasn’t an issue last time, and this time you’re still injured.”

“True. You got the drop on me. Three-on-one isn’t exactly fair, nor is it sexy. I prefer my fights and my sexy times one-on-one,” Stiles says. 

They continue to advance on him, and Stiles raises his bat. “The other thing I wanted to mention.”

All three roll their eyes. 

“Was that I’ve learned over the years that other people, and non-people, don’t always respect mono e mono or mano a mono, if you will, so I’ve learned that I am still a BAMF if I call for back up.”

“You going to claim that as your own?” 

Stiles turns and Derek is standing behind the gun-asshole—no, he’s standing over him, foot on his back and the gun kicked away. 

“I didn’t say it was my own. I just said I learned it. Do you feel the burning need for credit?”

“Everyone likes a little credit,” Derek says. 

“Who are you?” Natasha asks. 

“Derek Hale. Sorry I’m late to the party. This guy is really hard to shop for.”

“It’s my birthday?” Stiles asks.

Derek shoots him a look. 

“Wait. You are not the Derek Hale we met in Seattle. That Derek Hale was older. Lighter hair. Barbed tongue.”

“That would be my disgusting uncle, Peter Hale.”

Stiles involuntarily shivers. 

“Your uncle uses your name when causing trouble up and down the west coast?”

“You have no idea. That’s not even on the list of shitty, psychotic things he’s done to our family,” Derek says.

“Yeah. So, get in line, sista,” Stiles says.

Derek shoots him another look. This one has a particular tilt to the brow that means he’s concerned. Stiles is losing steam. He needs to wrap this one up.

“As I was saying. I’m not above calling for help,” Stiles says.

The other two, and possibly the guy with his face in the grass, look around with confusion. 

“We did this part. He’s here,” Natasha says.

“He’s not who I called.” Then there are four deputies and the Sheriff in his back yard guns drawn. Which is good. Because his dad’s number isn’t one that he can remember either—at least not with a head injury. Luckily, 9-1-1 seems to be hardwired. 

“These are my muggers. Not Derek. I’m not accusing Derek. Not this time. Not again. Innocent man. Innocent of most things.”

“Shut up, Stiles.”

The other three are taken away in handcuffs. Disgruntled and more than a little confused.

“Bye, Dad,” Stiles calls. “See you later.”

“Bye, son.”

Stiles waves. 

“You done?” Derek asks, and he’s much closer than he was before. Which is a good thing, because Stiles is done. Like his strings have been cut, he lists forward. Derek is there to catch him. He has one strong hand at the nape of Stiles’s neck and his other arm wrapped around his lower back. Stiles is too weak to reciprocate the embrace, so he just lays his face on the warmth of Derek’s jacket. His feet aren’t working and when Derek moves them toward the house, Stiles’s feet drag along. 

“Are you going to help at all?” Derek asks.

“No. Done being a BAMF for the night,” Stiles says.

“Okay. Well done.”

“Did you really get me a birthday present?” Stiles asks, as Derek switches his hold to gather up all of his long limbs better. 

“It’s not your birthday.”

“Oh. Was I supposed to remember where you were though?”

“Yes. Super-secret meeting with that beta from the Santori pack. We assumed that’s what these hunters were asking around about.”

“But just . . . Peter.”

“Isn’t it always.”

“Are they going to jail?”

“Well. They should. They did assault and rob you, even if it was just to make it look like a mugging. But, no. Your dad is about to lose some important evidence. But don’t worry they are going to get a nice long talk about territory and how things work off-the-books in Beacon Hills.”

“Plus, Peter.”

“Yes. Why have them in jail and planning revenge on us when we could have them exacting revenge on Peter.”

Derek lays Stiles gently on the bed without jostling his head. “Did you miss me?” Derek asks, as he lays down next to Stiles. They shift in to face each other with Stiles’s head resting on Derek’s bicep. 

“Yes. But also, you are my boyfriend, right? Not a head-injury induced fantasy?”

Derek tips Stile’s chin up with his fingers to look in his eyes. Stile’s heart beats a little faster as a flood of memories surface. Kisses. Specifically, lots of kisses. Of Derek, looking at him like he is now, as he does just before he kisses him with all the warmth and love swimming in those green eyes. And the smile. He does smile. And Stiles remembers. 

“Okay, okay. Don’t answer. Just kiss me,” Stiles says. 

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“You okay?” 

“Yes.” He leans forward and presses a kiss to Derek’s warm mouth. Snuggles in to Derek’s warm everything. “I am now. But I did. Miss you.”

Derek places kisses up the side of Stiles’s face. Rubs his beard softly against Stile’s neck. Scenting him. 

Stiles wraps his arm around Derek to keep him close. “Don’t leave me. I want to wake up to you and remember everything.”

Derek kisses Stiles one more time on his hairline. “If you don’t, I’ll be here to remind you.”


End file.
